


Pieces of Peace

by Franeridan



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:12:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franeridan/pseuds/Franeridan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The apartment was situated in a nice part of Tokyo – the bus stop was only a block away, five minutes of walk were enough to reach the metro station, there was a conbini just around the corner, it was that kind of place.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>It was also on the highest floor of a mostly new building, with tall windows and spacious rooms, and was big enough to easily accommodate Kuroo, Kenma and both their ridiculously-wide-winged Animae. It was so good, he had had troubles believing he'd lucked out to that point.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Which had made it to be expected, really, when Kenma had avoided eye contact and mumbled a barely audible "I can't move in with you anymore".</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Of course it had happened.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pieces of Peace

**Author's Note:**

> I drew [this](http://franeridart.tumblr.com/post/139571872255/even-more-bokuro-n-also-animals-practice-i-guess) and then looked at it long enough to go _fuck it, I'm writing a fic_ , so here it is  
> It's a pretty stupid fic, really, all I wanted was to write a Bokuro, a soulmate AU, and something that would have an actual owl and an actual cat in it, which is how this fic came out in the end  
> Anima/Animae is a latin word which means soul and also happens to be stupidly similar to the word animal, so in the end I picked that one - there's literally no other meaning for it aside from "I studied Latin for five years, at least this way it'll be actually useful for something"  
> Let me know if you liked this mess! Writing it made me happy, maybe reading it will do the same for you!

Kuroo's soulmate wasn't of the romantic type.

He had known since he'd been old enough to fully understand the difference, and he'd always been completely fine with it. A soulmate was a soulmate whatever role they covered inside one's life, after all.

He had no reason to feel sorry for himself.

 

*

 

The apartment was situated in a nice part of Tokyo – the bus stop was only a block away, five minutes of walk were enough to reach the metro station, there was a conbini just around the corner, it was that kind of place.

It was also on the highest floor of a mostly new building, with tall windows and spacious rooms, and was big enough to easily accommodate Kuroo, Kenma and both their ridiculously-wide-winged Animae. It was so good, he had had troubles believing he'd lucked out to that point.

Which had made it to be expected, really, when Kenma had avoided eye contact and mumbled a barely audible _I can't move in with you anymore_.

Of course it had happened.

“Come on, Kou, stop pouting,” he said, reaching over with his hand to ruffle the feathers on the owl's head, and then sighed and rolled his eyes when the only answer he received was a soft, sad hoot.

“You and your moods, seriously,” he grumbled, but let a smile bend his lips anyway when his Anima moved his head to nuzzle between his hair, “whoever my soulmate is, if he's even just half as much of an handful as you are I swear I'm going to apply for a change,” he teased, and then let out a snort when Kou hooted at him and flapped his wings indignantly as an answer.

That bird was so easy to rile up, he doubted he'd ever grow tired of it – maybe it'd feel just the same with his soulmate, who could know.

“I wanted to move in with Kenma too,” Kuroo mused after a few seconds of silence, pressing the button to call the elevator and then turning to grin at his Anima with as much enthusiasm as he could muster up, “but I bet we'll have fun with this other guy, too.”

Not as much as he would have had with his best friend, of course, but there wasn't much Kuroo could do about it.

After all, if he had had to pick between Kenma and his own soulmate, there was a seventy percent probability he would have picked the second too. Or maybe he would have tried working out a way to live with both of them, but that was only because his destined one was of the platonic type: could he really fault Kenma for having picked his romantic partner over his childhood best friend?

...well, maybe he could. But just a little, and only until he stopped feeling salty over his newly acquired status of second placed in Kenma's life.

“At least he found us a potential new roommate,” Kuroo sighed, stepping out of the elevator and heading towards the now familiar apartment; if everything went right, the new guy was going to like both the place and Kuroo enough to decide he wanted to share the space with him and a stupidly enthusiastic owl, and he and Kou would finally be able to leave the hole they had been inhabiting till that moment.

That sure would have been amazing.

When they reached the right door, the owner of the apartment, a small old man with a permanent smile bending his lips, was standing by himself in front of the entrance, hands behind his back and a small squirrel resting on his head – Kuroo took his phone out of his pocket to check the time, and scrunched up his nose when he realized he was at least ten minutes early on the scheduled meeting.

“I guess we were a bit too eager,” he said with a rueful grin to his owl, waiting for him to hoot at him in answer and then turning around to address the man waving at him.

“I'm sorry, we'll need to wait for someone else, too,” he apologized, but the man only moved a hand in a dismissive gesture, opening the door for them and preceding Kuroo inside.

“Little Kenma will know his way about,” the owner grinned, “you two have been here enough to have an old man guess you wouldn't need to see the place any more.”

The sigh that left Kuroo's lungs was mostly involuntary, but it turned out to be enough to have the man look at him with a questioning raised brow, so he didn't much mind his inability to keep his displeasure at the change in plans as hidden as he would have liked.

“We're waiting for someone else, this time around,” he explained with a rueful grin, shrugging the shoulder Kou was resting upon to let him know it was fine to stretch his wings and fly a little, “Kenma can't seem to make it, after all.”

The owner looked at him with surprise for a few seconds, moving his eyes on the still-open front door and then back on Kuroo for a couple of times, and commenting in the end with a soft _that's a pity, he would have made a good tenant._

“What kind of person are we waiting up on, then?” the old man wondered as he moved towards the windows to freshen the air in the apartment, making Kuroo let out a long, considering _hmmm_.

“I don't personally know him,” he started, rolling his eyes at Kou when he launched himself outside the window and up in the sky.

Their potential roommate was a friend of a friend of Kenma, as far as Kuroo had grasped – his best friend had described him as _someone you should get along with_ and _too noisy, but honestly so are you_ , which wasn't much information, but if Kenma thought it'd be okay for them to share an apartment then it was probably true. He had a good eye, for that kind of stuff.

Truth be told, what worried Kuroo the most was just one thing.

“His Anima should be a cat,” he said, having the owner turn around with a raised brow once again, obvious surprise in his wide eyes – Kuroo could understand the skepticism, really. Birds and felines weren't known to be a good match, after all.

But, again, Kenma had suggested it. And he'd mentioned getting along with said cat, so maybe it was going to be alright.

He opened his mouth to tell the owner not to worry too much, that everything was under control, when the soft press of a warm body against his left leg had him jump a little and look down in surprise.

A black cat was staring back at him, wide eyes and elegant posture, purring so loudly he could perfectly hear it without needing to get any closer – he let out a surprised _ah!_ when the animal mewled up at him and rubbed its head against his shin in a demanding, nearly forceful movement, and then turned towards the door to check if the owner of the Anima currently trying to climb his leg was anywhere close.

“He must have arrived,” he mumbled to himself, wondering what he should do with the animal and if it would be too rude to touch someone else's Anima without permission if the purpose was to avoid claws marks all over his thigh.

“Aren't you a bit too friendl–“ he started wondering, directing the question at the feline still mewling at him, but Kou's white shape flying fast past him had the words die in his throat and made his head whip around when a surprised _woah!_ reached him from the front door.

“Kou!” he yelled, reflexively picking up the cat still trying to climb his leg and hurriedly moving towards the entrance, outstretched arm and panicked expression, where his Anima was currently trying to eat their future roommate's face off, probably, “you stupid owl, get off him!”

“It's okay!” the man said from behind the mass of feathers a second later, though, waving his arms around a bit and then taking a hold of the bird with careful hands, “it's not hurting me!”

The sentence had Kuroo take in a long breath of relief, the shoulders he hadn't noticed he'd tensed suddenly relaxing, and as he let out a resigned _I'm really sorry about him_ , he finally noticed the cat he was currently cradling between his arms, still purring and rubbing its head against his chest.

Its eyes, a soft amber in color that Kuroo found hauntingly familiar, were barely open and directly pointed at his face, and it was with an hitched inhale that he noticed how the warm weight pressed against him made him feel right and _complete_ nearly more than holding Kou ever did – he slowly raised his head to look back at the man still standing on the entrance, and when bright, golden irises met his own Kuroo, for a second, forgot how to breath completely.

 _That's Kou's eyes' color_ , he realized with sharp clarity, and just distantly noticed the apartment's owner laugh and make his way out of the front door, a warm _show your boy around yourself, will you?_ his only parting words.

They stood looking at each other in silence for a long minute, Kuroo's eyes wide and the man's grin nearly splitting his face in two; then the other shifted the owl rubbing at his neck on one arm – _nice_ _arm_ , Kuroo uselessly noticed – and gestured with a hand at the black cat as his smile impossibly became even more pronounced.

“That'd be my Tetsu,” he said, finally moving inside the apartment and coming to stand just a couple of feet away from his Anima, using his free hand to rub at the cat's chin with a gentle finger.

“ _Tetsu_ ,” Kuroo repeated, feeling his breath come short and trying not to think about how his stomach had made half a flip, when the guy had touched the feline.

“Yeah! And I'm Bokuto, Bokuto Koutarou,” he nodded with a grin in his voice, owl hooting enthusiastically at the sound of the name and flapping his wings a couple of times, “you must be Kuroo, right?”

“ _Kou_ tarou,” he exhaled in answer, tightening his hold on the cat without meaning to and prompting the other man – _Bokuto goddamn_ Kou _tarou_ , he couldn't believe this – to tilt his head and frown at him with too wide eyes.

He even _looked_ like an owl, Kuroo was starting to feel incredibly unsure he was going to come out alive from that meeting: what was he even supposed to be feeling, right then? His own mind, at the moment, felt to him as if stopped in time. Unable to think, muted, maybe close to underwater.

He wasn't even sure he was still breathing.

“You have my same first name?” Bokuto wondered with a raised brow, his mouth set in a confused near-pout, and Kuroo shook his head to bring himself back to the present, looked with lips slightly parted and eyebrows high down at the cat between his arms, up at his own Anima trying to climb up on the other's shoulder, and finally at Bokuto's wide, surprised eyes.

“I– what? _Ah?_ No!” he exclaimed, shaking his head again to clear his mind and taking a step back, “I'm _Tetsurou_ , Kuroo Tetsurou, and the owl trying to nest between your hair is–” he stopped, finding the words suddenly blocked in his throat and making it hard to swallow enough air to keep talking.

He bit down on his lower lip and closed his eyes for a long moment, taking then in a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh, shrugging his shoulders in a forcibly casual motion.

“Kou. He's my Kou.”

It took a few still seconds before Bokuto stopped blinking at him and finally caught on with what was happening, but when he did a grin so wide it looked painful split his face in two, making it impossible for Kuroo's lips not to follow suit soon after.

 _What the hell_ , he thought, letting the cat move up to his shoulders and rub against his temple, _that's actually my soulmate_.

He nearly felt like laughing.

“ _Tetsurou_ ,” Bokuto let out in a breath, an awed mumble that made Kuroo's stomach flip on itself and his heart jump a beat, and then turned his eyes on the owl and continued, voice a little higher, “and _Kou_ ,” he moved his hands to delicately take a hold of the bird, bringing him right in front of his face, grinning brightly when Kou hooted happily at him in answer.

“You're _mine!_ ” he concluded excitedly, golden eyes settling once more on Kuroo's face and taking a long step closer to him, making the other's neck and ears heat up both from the word used and the suddenly nonexistent space between them.

Tetsu mewled high at his owner, a sound incredibly close to excited, and, when Bokuto's answer was a loud and happy laugh, Kuroo didn't even try to keep his own from mixing with it in the chill air of their new apartment.

 

*

 

In the case of an older soulmate, the Anima usually took a minimum of a week after the birth of the child to properly shape into the right animal – before that it existed under a vague, shining figure, there to alert whoever might care that the soul it was part of already existed somewhere in the world, but it always took from seven days to over a month before the child was strong enough to properly bond with it and, subsequently, for the animal to really appear.

Kuroo's owl had taken shape two hours after his birth.

It had been a small, white chick with not even enough strength to chirp or move around by itself, and for weeks after it had appeared Kuroo's parents had been scared the early bonding and weak look meant their son's soulmate was going to die in the immediate future – the baby owl had grown just as steadily as Tetsurou had, though, and by the time the child could crawl and mumble his first words, the bird was able to fly around his head with ease and made enough noise to keep the whole family awake throughout most nights.

When asked, their doctor had theorized a particular affinity between the two souls, citing many other cases in which something analogue had happened, listing similarities between the various relationships and making suppositions about what Tetsurou's soulmate was going to be like.

In the end, though, if anyone asked his mother about it her answer was a very decisive _it means their bond is stronger than normal ones_ , and Kuroo had spent many years of his life convinced his soulmate would turn out to be the most beautiful, perfect-in-every-sense girl, and in his daydreams he had assumed he would ask her to marry him as soon as he'd be able to find her.

The fact that his owl happened to be a male and that his name was as much a boy's name as it was a girl's didn't really catch up to him until he turned twelve – but even after that, once he got over the initial disappointment of seeing all his fantasies crumble down at his feet, he'd still been sure that, even if he couldn't fall in love with his soulmate, he was still going to be the most perfect best friend a guy could ask for.

That he would be shaped to fit just right with Kuroo, in every possible sense, and that their meeting would mark the moment in which his life would become _better_. _More_.

He had spent the whole of his twenty-seven years of life building up to that moment, honestly.

Which was why he would have very much appreciated it, if Kenma had deigned himself to notify him of the fact that he was setting him up to live with that same soulmate he'd spent his whole life waiting to meet.

“You would have panicked,” Kenma said from the other end of the phone, sounding as disinterested as he possibly could, and Kuroo groaned and sped up his stride, waving his free hand around in distressed annoyance.

“I _did_ panic!” he cried out, prompting his Anima to hoot at him and jump off from his increasingly more trembling shoulder, “Kou nearly clawed the guy's face off, I forgot how to speak, I barely remembered to ask him for his contact infos, _Kenma!_ You should have _told_ me!”

On the other side of the line, his best friend took in a slow breath and exhaled for a endless handful of seconds; then a loud _beep_ and a soft _thud_ reached Kuroo's ears, informing him that the other had probably shut off whatever game he'd been playing, and Kenma inhaled and exhaled again in the way he did when he prepared to talk more than he strictly wished to.

“If I had told you,” he started, voice slow and clear, “you would have spent weeks trying to pick the right outfit, managed not to sleep for the past four days, built your stress levels up to the point of yelling at the first thing making noise around you, spent the whole morning trying to flatten your hair, _failed_ and categorically refused to meet Bokuto at all.”

“That's not–”

“It's true,” Kenma interrupted, managing to sound at the same time completely disinterested and deeply exasperated, “but a soulmate is meant to accept you just as you are, stupid hair included. Not telling you was better.”

Then the _beep_ was heard again, followed by a series of other sounds making clear Kenma had started playing again, and Kuroo scrunched up his nose and bit at his lower lip, stopping dead in his tracks and then sighing defeated.

“His hair was stupider than mine,” he settled on saying in the end, waving a hand at his owl to have him come down and rest on his shoulder again, and his friend's soft snort was enough to have him relax and smile at himself.

“He looks a bit like Kou,” Kenma said after a while, making Kuroo laugh out loud and counter with an amused _he looks_ completely _like Kou_.

As much as he'd been able to tell in the couple of hours they had spent together, Bokuto's personality was also pretty similar to Kuroo's Anima – he was readily excitable, noisy and easy to rile up. Going by how many times he had managed to touch Kuroo in the short period they had been together, be it an arm around his shoulders or a hand on his wrist to drag him around, he was going to assume Bokuto was also just as much a tactile person as Kou was a cuddly animal.

And technically Kuroo had already know that soulmates shared most, if not all, of their associated Anima's traits: after all, people and animals were parts of the same whole. Still, he was glad he somehow already knew Bokuto.

He got along with Kou just fine, he shouldn't have any type of problem with his soulmate either.

He hummed low and prolonged to himself, moving up a hand to let Kou snuggle in his palm and grinning to himself.

“I guess we'll make good friends,” he declared, delighted by the fact that it looked like the expectations of a lifetime would be met, after all, and Kenma let out a vague _hmm_ , keeping silent and letting his console beep away for a while.

“So you told him about that,” he commented in the end, making Kuroo move his phone in front of his eyes just so he could frown at it.

“Well, obviously. That's something you talk about immediately, isn't it?”

Actually, the first to bring up the _platonic vs romantic_ topic had been Bokuto, in the end. They had been roaming the apartment for about half an hour, when he had suddenly turned around and looked at him up and down with a raised brow.

“What,” Kuroo had asked, feeling a slightly unsure grin bend his lips, but Bokuto had just shrugged and gone back to look at the kitchen, cat balanced on his shoulder with elegance and practiced ease.

“Nothing,” he had answered, and then had shrugged again as if trying to take time to find the right words to voice his thoughts, “I mean, I already knew, of course, but I guess you actually _are_ a guy.”

For some reason he didn't particularly want to dwell on, Kuroo had felt his stomach drop at the remark – he had plastered a smile on his face anyway, though, playing with the feathers at the end of one of Kou's wings and shrugging himself.

“It's fine, I don't mind it being platonic, I'm into girls myself,” he had said, keeping his eyes on the darker tips of his owl's plumage and ignoring Kou's annoyed hooting; when seconds later he'd raised his stare, anyway, Bokuto had been grinning at him wide and bright, and had nodded his assent at him with unconcealed enthusiasm.

As far as Kuroo had been concerned, that marked a conversation gone well, so he had let the topic drop and had kept himself busy answering any question his soulmate may have had about the apartment they intended to share.

“Bokuto was fine with it,” he reported to Kenma, and then rolled his eyes at his best friend when he hummed in that way he had that meant he wasn't listening any longer.

 

*

 

All of Kuroo's shifts were night ones, aside from on Wednesdays where he had the afternoon and late-evening shifts and Mondays which he had free – it had always worked just fine for him, because he was mostly a nocturnal type of man and, unless a serious accident happened, nights at the hospital were slow and lazy, made of checking on sleeping patients, quietly gossiping with whoever happened to be on shift with him, making as little noise as possible while playing around with Kou and helping out, in any way he could, whoever couldn't seem to find peace for the night.

Being a pediatric nurse wasn't glamorous, that was for sure, but he had still always been generally happy about his job, be it about his responsibilities or his hours. Taking care of kids had never failed to make him feel oddly useful and _good_ , it was a sensation one could get addicted to.

And if he managed to achieve that while still spending most of his time lazying around, he surely wasn't going to complain.

Right then, anyway, he would have given anything to have something to make the shift move faster, or maybe even end sooner.

“I hate this,” he grumbled to his Anima, and then stuck out his tongue at Kenma when he rolled his eyes at him.

“You're being melodramatic,” his best friend said, his usual monotone making Kuroo pout even harder and sound especially petulant when he replied with a huffed _am not_.

“In three months of living together I haven't even added up _one week_ of time spent with Bo, how is this fair,” he groaned, letting himself fall forward until he hit his forehead on the desk in front of him and feeling soon after Kou settle on the back of his head, messing up his hair even more than it already was.

While his shift were all night ones, Bokuto's schedule packed up every single one of his afternoons and evenings, not a free day throughout the whole week – which meant that he woke up as Kuroo got back from work, too exhausted to do much more than tiredly wave him hello, and then was gone before he could wake up again; they met in the evening when Bokuto came back home and Kuroo headed out to work, but even then his soulmate was too tired from his just ended shift to wish for anything more than his own bed.

All in all they always managed to miss each other, and Kuroo simply couldn't bring himself to find even just one reason why the whole situation may be considered any sort of fair.

Because it wasn't.

 _At_ _all_.

“And now you're being exaggerated,” Kenma pointed out, scribbling down on the notebook in front of him with rapid movements and distractedly pushing a lock of bleached hair behind his ear, “Wednesdays you share the same schedules, and you both have Sundays free. That's two days per week, twenty-four days in three months, it's more than just one week of time together.”

“Well, it's still too little!” Kuroo groaned in exasperation, whipping his head up to look at his best friend with a frown and having a nearly-asleep Kou tumble off of him and wake up with an indignant hoot, “and what are you even doing here, anyway,” he went on in a grumble,crossing his arms at his chest and keeping his eyebrows drawn together and his mouth a straight line when Kenma looked back at him with calm eyes, his Anima resting on one of his shoulders and systematically cleaning the feathers of his black wings.

“I work better here,” he said, gesturing with his pencil to the paper in front of him, “it's quiet, when kids aren't crying and you're not complaining.”

Kuroo rolled his eyes at the remark, reaching over to a still indignant Kou and trying to coax him into coming back to him; the owl looked at him with a tilted head for a long while, starting then to jump towards him slowly and close to reluctantly, making Kuroo smile a little as he reminded him of the way a pouting Bokuto would still gravitate towards him even without meaning to.

Anima and soulmate really did resemble each other, after all.

“Yaku is going to yell at you again, if he finds you here without a good reason,” he told Kenma with a grin, closing his arms around Kou and snuggling his face between the soft feathers of his head.

“Yaku never yells at me,” was the distracted answer he received after a second, and Kuroo let out a snorted _Yaku yells at everyone_ just as his phone vibrated on the desk by his arm with an incoming text.

He blindly reached a hand out to pick it up, checking the sender's handle with vague disinterest, and then a smile suddenly split his face, eyes brightening as the name registered in his mind.

**> Bokhooto; 02:37**

_\- i cant sleep !!!_

**< Me; 02:38**

_\- And what do you want me to do about it?_

**> Bokhooto; 02:40**

_\- i dunno do smth !!!!_

Kuroo looked at his phone's screen for a second, typing out a fast _come over_ and then deleting it just as readily, ignoring both Kenma's pointed stare and Kou's interested one.

**< Me; 02:42**

_\- Why don't you pester Akaashi instead_

**> Bokhooto; 02:42**

_\- HED KILL ME IF I TEXTED HIM RN DO U WANT ME TO DIE_

**< Me; 02:43**

_\- That'd def make you pass out, though_

**> Bokhooto; 02:43**

_\- D:_

< **Me; 02:43**

_\- What makes you think I won't kill you, then_

**> Bokhooto; 02:44**

_\- D: D:_

_\- u never would right_

_\- and ur already awake_

_\- u never killed kou even if he hoots all the time_

_\- u were kinda made to bear me w/o it ending with my death_

_\- u love me too much_

_\- ur always bored at work anyway_

As the string of texts became longer and longer, Kuroo's eyes rested on the word _love_ for endless, unmoving minutes – enough time for Bokuto to start sending question marks and panicked emoticons with increasing frequency, which made him come back to the present and roll his eyes, snorting both at himself and at his soulmate.

“Don't I know it,” he mumbled to his phone, small smile bending his lips when a frantic _ur not planning ways to kill me r u ???_ finally popped up at the end of the conversation.

**< Me; 02:53**

_\- Get on the couch and turn on the tv to a random movie, you idiot_

_\- Smth you don't like much_

_\- NO ACTION FLICKS OR COMEDIES_

_\- Bring your pillow and blanket_

_\- That should knock you out_

**> Bokhooto; 02:54**

_\- !!!!_

_- <3_

He laughed out loud at the last text, shaking his head and pushing his phone inside his scrubs' pants' pocket with a grin bending his lips and heart light in his chest – when he turned his eyes back on Kenma, his friend was looking at him with a raised brow and an unimpressed stare, but Kuroo just shrugged in answer, reaching out for Kou again and hiding his face and smile among the soft feathers between his wings.

 

*

 

When he got home the next morning, Bokuto was still asleep on the couch, Tetsu curled up on his wide chest and television still on before him.

Kuroo let his bag fall on the floor with a soft thud, abandoned his coat on the same chair from which he retrieved the remote to turn the TV off, and then let himself fall on the couch by his soulmate's side, making the cat wake up and adjust himself to settle equally on both of them.

Surrounded by Bokuto's scent and warmth, feeling a peace he was slowly growing used to, he fell asleep before he could even take note of Kou hooting happily at them both and then nesting between the other's shoulder and neck.

 

*

 

“Do you want to go to the zoo with me?” Bokuto said one Monday morning without looking at him, eyes trained on the pan before him and tongue slightly peaking out between his lips in concentration – the sudden question had Kuroo nearly choke on his coffee, making him cough and wake up the cat sleeping on his legs.

“ _What_?” he asked, voice a little rough and eyebrows high, and Bokuto shrugged in answer, flipping the pancake he was cooking with practiced ease.

“I have to go today, for work,” he explained, back still turned on him, “because there's this lioness, you know? We've been taking care of her for a while and Tetsu just doesn't seem to like her!” he waved his spatula around a bit, moving his eyes on Kuroo just to point a frowny pout at his cat – cat that only mewled at him in disinterested answer, making Bokuto groan out an half-whine and turn back to his breakfast in a weirdly petulant movement.

“Usually Akaashi comes with me to hold onto Tetsu, but I thought maybe you'd want to come, instead!”

There was a wide smile bending his lips when he turned back around, making then his way towards the table with a plate of pancakes in one hand and coffee in the other, and Kuroo had actually become pretty good in the art of pretending he couldn't feel the slight, unexplained disappointment momentarily binding his lungs.

“Sure,” he said instead, throwing a piece of bread at Kou and grinning when his Anima easily caught it in his beak, “we're free today anyway, it could be fun.”

“Sweet!” Bokuto grinned at him in answer, enthusiasm clear in his bright eyes and high tone, and Kuroo wondered if it was normal even in the case of a platonic soulmate, for his heart to swell so much every time he happened to be the cause of that smile.

Maybe it was, he told himself. After all, aside from Nishinoya and Tanaka he didn't know any other platonic soulmates, and those two pretty much lived to make one another laugh – it was the principle itself of being halves of a same whole, Kuroo idly guessed.

If a destined relationship of that caliber couldn't even make you happy, then what was the point, really?

Bokuto talked about his lioness patient the whole way between their apartment and the zoo four metro stops away, gesticulating widely and smiling as bright as usual – Tetsu spent that time refusing to get out of Kuroo's arms' hold, seemingly annoyed at his owner for being so enthusiastic about another feline, and, as if to keep things balanced, Kou didn't move away from Bokuto's shoulder for the whole length of the trip.

The way the two Animae acted as if they equally belonged to both of them was something Kuroo had found amusing since the beginning of their relationship, even if, when he stopped to think about it, it did make an obvious sort of sense: after all, Tetsu was part of his very soul. He was the first to consider the cat just as much his Anima as Kou was.

It was something he could easily admit to, how he only felt really complete when, aside from Bokuto himself, both Animae were near him, too.

“So, where's this lioness?” Kuroo asked as they stepped inside the zoo's gates, letting the cat between his arms jump down as soon as he started wriggling and then smiling when Kou flew off to follow him around.

Bokuto hummed low and drawn out, pulling out his phone from his pants' pocket and checking the time, before turning towards him with a wide grin and reaching over to grab at his left wrist.

“It's still early for that, let's have a look around!” he exclaimed, starting to pull Kuroo after himself and ignoring every word of confusion or protest he had to say in answer.

Of course it was going to end up like that, Kuroo seriously wondered how had he not seen it coming. Not that he minded in the least, anyway, if the smile bending his lips was anything to go by. He hadn't been to the zoo since he'd been a little kid, after all: it was just normal for him to like the idea of visiting.

That was the only reason why he couldn't stop the grin from spreading on his face, really.

With their Animae mostly leading the way, Bokuto guided him from area to area, pointing at animals and explaining trivia about them ridiculous enough to have Kuroo wonder if they were even true to being with – and then repeating an enthusiastic _of course I'm sure, I'm a veterinarian after all!_ whenever he smirked and pointed out just how over the top most of it sounded.

“That's Steve!” he said after about twenty minutes of walking around, pointing at a light brown monkey eating a pink flower on the highest branch of the tree in front of them, “I named him, you know? He _loves_ me.”

He waved a hand up at the small animal, smiling elated when he turned around to look at him, and then stilling in shock when the monkey went back to his flower without acknowledging him any further, prompting Kuroo to snort out a short, amused laugh.

“Doesn't look like he cares much,” he teased with a light smirk, rolling then his eyes in fond exasperation when Bokuto's shoulders dropped and a long whine left his throat.

 _You and your moods_ , Kuroo sighed to himself, throwing an arm around the other's shoulders and ignoring the half-desperate whines of _I even helped with his birth!_ and _maybe I'm not made to be a vet_ , opting instead for shaking him lightly and steering him away from the monkeys' zone.

“What's over there?” he said, pointing at a random direction and starting to move towards it without waiting for an answer.

Bokuto let out a mostly disinterested _hmm?_ , moving his eyes from his feet to the place Kuroo was pointing at with a slow raising of his head, pout still on his lips and eyes close to desperate – then his face suddenly brightened, lids widening and eyebrows rising, and a second later he was once again dragging Kuroo towards a new area of the zoo.

“The Scarlet Macaws!” he exclaimed excitedly, waving a hand at Tetsu and Kou to have them follow and speeding up as soon as the Animae had caught up, “they're these _huge_ red parrots, you're gonna love them, they're _so amazing!_ ”

Kuroo tuned him out once he was completely sure his soulmate's mood was once again as high as possible, distractedly _hm_ -ing and _ah_ -ing based on the other's tone, and concentrated instead on forcing himself to keep his mind off the heat and weight of Bokuto's fingers circling his wrist – he made himself focus on Kou and Tetsu playing a couple of feet away from him, on the parrots cleaning themselves and flying around in the aviary before them, on the kids yelling delighted and excited all over the place, on literally _anything_ that wasn't his stupid stomach doing flips and his useless throat refusing to swallow.

It had been nearly six months since they had started living together, when was his body going to get used to having his soulmate always in close proximity? Those reactions were starting to get ridiculous.

There was no way he could keep going like that for much longer.

A sudden, surprised _ah!_ leaving Bokuto's mouth brought Kuroo back from his zoning out, making him startle and whip his head around just in time to notice the other standing way too close to him, pink tongue just about visible between his lips in concentration and hands raised above his head.

“Stay still,” Bokuto said, just as Kuroo moved to take a step back and a confused _what_ made its way out of his lungs, and when he slowly and carefully brought his cupped hands back down in front of his face, on his palms was a wide-winged, dark blue and brown butterfly.

“She was resting on your hair,” he explained, grinning wide and bright up at his soulmate with the most delighted expression he had ever shown, and for a second Kuroo swore his stomach must have dropped and his lungs become smaller of at least seven sizes, his face heating up all at once and his breath stumbling in his throat and completely stopping there.

 _What the hell_.

“She?” he forced out after a second, taking a step back to put space between them in the most natural movement he could manage and forcing his lungs to start working again – Bokuto didn't seem to notice, though, nodding instead enthusiastically at the butterfly between his hands and bringing it up closer to Kuroo's face.

“Yeah! Her colors are duller, you see?” he explained, moving then towards the closest bush and delicately depositing her on a mostly out of the way leaf.

While Bokuto busied himself with making sure the butterfly was as safe as possible, blabbering about scales and species and wings' shapes, Kuroo found himself bringing a hand to rest on his still-beating-too-fast heart, frowning and biting his lower lip as Tetsu started rubbing at his legs and Kou settled himself on top of his hair.

“ _What the hell_ ,” he repeated in a slightly annoyed whisper, directing his confusion at the two Animae and furrowing his brows even further, but the only answer he received was a pointed and decisive, incomprehensible mewl.

 

*

 

Bokuto found himself a girlfriend halfway through their seventh month of cohabitation, and Kuroo suddenly perfectly understood what it must have meant, for Tetsu, to see the man he was bound to fawn over that one lioness back at the zoo.

It was a vicious, black hold around his heart, making his smiles forced and his eyes colder, his hugs more reluctant and his words less kind, and for a short while Kuroo had been once again grateful for his long shifts at the hospital.

He hadn't really understood _why_ that reaction, though, until he had taken part in a short conversation in the middle of the night with a little girl too scared by nightmares to go back to sleep.

He'd been sitting on the floor of her room with her, Kou excitedly trying to coax her black fox into playing, when she brought up the soulmates topic with a small voice and avoiding eyes.

“Did you find yours yet?” she asked, undoing a braid in her blond hair and starting it again with slightly unsure fingers.

“I did, not too long ago,” Kuroo answered, threading his own hands between her hair and holding part of it up in a small ponytail, “have you, Hitoka?” he asked back, more out of habit than anything else, though.

Which was why, when the girl's head moved in a hesitant, small nod, it mostly took him by surprise.

“Really?” he asked again, blocking the hair up with a star-shaped clip and moving to the other side of her head, and Hitoka hummed and nodded again, reaching over in her box of hair-ties for a red and golden clip.

“She's Kiyoko from 208,” she explained, turning around to reach up towards Kuroo's fringe and blocking it aside with the clip she had just retrieved, “I found out yesterday.”

Her voice, at the admission, sounded small and unsure, making her Anima stop minding Kou to get closer and lick at her face – Kuroo looked at the two of them in silence for a handful of seconds, taking in Hitoka's tense shoulders and worrying hands, and then reached over her nightstand to retrieve for her the pencils and paper she always kept around.

“Is that why you can't sleep?” he wondered, watching her tense even further and shake her head, shrug and then nod in rapid succession.

“Ma-maybe,” she settled on in the end, starting to draw with a steady hand despite the slight tremble of her shoulders, “she's, she's really, _really_ pretty. And all the boys like her, what– what if they hate me now and plan a way to chase me out of the hospital and then it starts snowing and I can't find a place to pass the night an–”

“ _Hitoka_ ,” Kuroo smiled at her, moving a hand to rest on her head to have her stop talking and look up at him, “no one is going to chase you out of here, I'll make sure of it,” he promised, but the girl's only reaction was to squeeze her eyes shut and push out a panicked:

“What if I _die?_ ”

“Die?” he asked, raising a brow and straightening his back so that Kou could settle on his shoulder, and Hitoka nodded and threw her arms around her Anima, lower lip slightly wobbling but eyes still completely dry.

“My heart, it does weird things when she's around, and my stomach and my lungs too, and I forget how to breath what do I do if I can't remember how to breath ever again? I can only hold my breath for twenty-three seconds!” she cried out, moving her arms in a wide, frantic gesture, and then continued hurriedly, before Kuroo could do anything more than open his mouth and shortly inhale, “mama said it's because my heart knows I love her, but if my heart stops working does it mean it doesn't want to be in love? Can't I be in love without my heart stopping? Is your heart also stopping every time you see yours?”

She looked up at him with wide eyes, her fox held tight against her small chest and expression close to pleading – Kuroo opened his mouth, habit telling him to answer with a light _I can't really say, my soulmate is platonic_ , but something in his chest made his throat close up and the familiar words die at the back of his mouth.

Could he really say he didn't feel his heart stop every time golden eyes met his?

Would it have been fair to say his lungs and stomach didn't scrunch up and make flips every time Bokuto smiled at him or casually touched him?

When he was honest with himself, he _had_ feared a premature death a couple of times already because of the way his body reacted to his soulmate – hell, he had just spent the past few weeks being jealous of a girl he didn't even remember the name of, hadn't he?

 _God damn it_.

How the _hell_ hadn't he noticed any sooner?

 

*

 

Kuroo had no problems with the idea of having a platonic soulmate.

He'd known about the difference between the types and had accepted the possibility of his not being of the romantic one over fifteen years prior, and, honestly, he even kind of found it fitting for himself.

A soulmate was a soulmate whatever place it occupied in one's life, after all, and Kuroo had always valued his friendships above most other relationships anyway. A platonic soulmate would have been _perfect_ for him.

He used to often feel like he had truly lucked out, in that sense.

And he probably still would, really, weren't it for the sharp change in perspective his view on the whole soulmate situation had suddenly taken.

“I love Bokuto,” he let out in a short breath, phone held way too tightly against his right ear and feet moving fast and brisk on the sidewalk as a way to let out the anxiety rapidly building up in his chest.

“Hm,” Kenma said from the other end of the line, vague and unimpressed, and Kuroo groaned long and drawn out, watching his breath fog up in front of his mouth with irrational annoyance.

“I mean that I'm _in love with_ _him_ ,” he corrected, stopping dead in front of his building's entrance for the fifth time and then turning around and starting walking back along the way he had just come from, ignoring Kou's confused hooting and pushing a hand between his black locks in distress.

“I know,” Kenma answered distractedly, game noises coming from the background and a soft curse leaving his lips soon after, and Kuroo sputtered and stumbled over his own two feet, moving his phone in front of his face and looking at it with wide eyes, furrowed brows and open mouth.

“You _know?!_ ” he cried out a minute later, feeling his heart jump in his throat and turning his face towards his Anima when he felt it settle on his shoulder, sinking his nose between Kou's feathers and breathing in and out in a forced steady rhythm to try and calm down at least marginally.

The owl smelled just like Bokuto, though, and that scent made his heart slow down and speed up at the same time, somehow.

“Kuroo, breathe,” Kenma said after a couple of silent seconds, steady and clear, and he let go of Kou to deeply take in the chill, early-morning air, let it all out in a swift _whoosh_ , and then started pacing again.

“How did you know?” he asked, listening to Kenma's slow hum with a too big heart and too small lungs, and then actually laughed out loud when his best friend's answer was a rational:

“It's been eight months and I'm still your best friend.”

Seriously, _how the hell had he just noticed?_

 

*

 

Living with Bokuto was the easiest and yet most complicated thing Kuroo had ever done in his whole life.

And it had always felt that way, really, but now that the word _romance_ had taken a stupidly fixed place in the front of Kuroo's mind, the hard parts of cohabiting had suddenly become _harder_.

It was hard to look at Bokuto when he had just woken up, black and white hair a flattened mess on his forehead and sleepy eyes just barely open – it was even harder having him plaster himself all over Kuroo's back, bed-warm and heavy and even more cuddly than usual, strong arms thrown around his waist and nose pressed between his shoulder blades as he complained about the absence of fresh coffee in his hands.

It was hard waking up in the early afternoon and seeing Bokuto run around half-necked and just out of the shower, hurriedly getting ready to go out – and harder still was having to fix his clothes before he went outside looking like he'd just been run over by a hurricane, and Kuroo was every day more impressed by his own ability to keep his hands from shaking and his lazy grin firmly plastered on his lips.

It was hard coming home in the early mornings and finding food ready for him on the table, hard to keep himself from reaching over and just kissing the self-satisfied smile off Bokuto's bright face; it was hard looking at Bokuto sleeping on the couch and keeping himself from curling over him, hard feeling his hands on his wrists and arms around his shoulders and forcing his body not to lean in, hard listening to him casually talk about his girlfriend and stopping his heart from crumbling on itself as he kept up a steady rhythm of casual answers and comments.

Living with Bokuto was becoming harder and harder every passing hour.

But there were also times when just looking at his soulmate move around the wide spaces of their shared apartment made Kuroo's heart calm down and a smile spread over his lips, and late evenings and early mornings when simply sitting by Bokuto's side and letting easy banters and silly topics flow between them was enough to make him feel completely at peace.

Even considering the shift in his feelings, the way Kou's heat and scent felt exactly like his soulmate's still settled him like nothing else could, and the way warmth took over his chest whenever Bokuto held Tetsu close still made him feel right and at home – every text his soulmate sent him was a good reason to grin, every second Bokuto used to take pictures of him still made him feel ridiculously cherished, every _I kinda miss you_ and _when are you coming home?_ and _it made me think of you!_ he still held in his heart as if more precious than anything else in the world.

Kenma had called him an idiot often enough over his refusal to voice his feelings to the other, but the way his relationship with Bokuto could be at the same time so impossibly hard and yet so incredibly fulfilling made Kuroo's words die in his throat whenever he even just thought about bringing the topic up.

Because, what would he have done if their relationship was actually meant to be only platonic, and _he_ was the idiot who'd managed to fall for someone he could never really have? They were soulmates, so Kuroo was mostly sure there was no way Bokuto would ever truly leave him, but if _he himself_ could live with that knowledge as a certain fact was something he still wasn't brave enough to wish to find out.

“But you're soulmates,” Kenma repeated for what was probably the tenth time from the other end of the line, making Kuroo sigh and let his forehead hit the windowsill with a soft _thud_.

“So what?” he grumbled out, sound mostly dulled by the way his arms were held around his head; Kou was flying through the night sky before him, wide wings and sharp turns, and, for a second, Kuroo wished he could do that too – fly out of the window and pretend the world underneath had stopped existing completely.

It would have been nice, to have his mind clear for a couple of seconds once in a while.

“Aren't you two supposed to share a destiny? Or something like that, anyway,” Kenma explained, his voice turning vaguely unsure around the edges on the last word, and Kuroo scoffed and rolled his eyes, straightening his back and moving to lean against the side of the window with a barely concealed huff.

“Doesn't mean we share the same feelings, too,” he said, a sigh heavy in his tone, and then let out a low whistle just to have his Anima hoot back at him, clear sound in the early-night quietness making Kuroo softly smile to himself.

Kenma kept silent for a long minute, probably scribbling down codes for whatever game he was working on at the time, and voicing in the end a long, considering _hmmm_.

“Actually, I think that's exactly what it means,” he retorted, “at least towards each other, I guess.”

And wouldn't that have been nice, Kuroo mused to himself. But not everyone was lucky enough to meet their soulmate and instantly know whatever they were feeling was surly reciprocated like Kenma had, in the real world.

Some people didn't even ever meet their soulmates, after all – it was a messed up system, Kuroo had suspected it his whole life.

He was just about to voice that exact thought, when a weirdly subdued _I'm back_ and the warm press of a cat against his calf made Kuroo jump on the spot and whip his head around, eyes widening as soon as they met Bokuto's golden irises and he took in the three straight cuts starting from the side of his nose and ending on his jaw, bleeding profusely and staining the neck of his shirt.

“ _What the–!_ ” he cried out, shortly bringing his attention back on Kenma to tell him he'd call him back and then hurriedly making his way towards his soulmate.

“What the hell happened!” he asked, brows furrowed and eyes worried, as he took a hold of the other's wrist and steered him towards the bathroom – Bokuto let out a long _uhhhhh_ , raising a hand to smear the blood on his cheek and then sighing when Kuroo pushed him to sit on the edge of the tub.

“There was this kitten,” he started, winching a little when Kuroo pressed a wet towel on his face to start cleaning him up, “it was _so small_ and I thought it was alone, so I tried to pick it up and bring it to the clinic, you know?”

His shoulders dropped a bit when another deep sigh left his lungs, and then he let out a pitiful whine when his soulmate started disinfecting the gashes and properly checking them out.

“Let me guess, it wasn't alone and mama-cat wasn't happy about you touching it,” Kuroo said, one hand resting on the clean side of Bokuto's face to tilt it towards the light so he could make sure the cuts didn't need stitches, and the _hmmm_ he received in answer was all he needed to know he had hit the bull's-eye.

“I never thought I'd say this, but you're usually more careful than that,” he commented, reaching over to grab a handful of small butterfly band-aids and applying them with practiced ease – this close up, he could feel the other's scent and warmth, could even make out the nearly invisible freckles on the bridge of his nose, and Kuroo had to take in a steadying breath and close his eyes for a second to stop himself from moving a finger to trace patterns over them.

Bokuto sighed once again at the comment, letting his shoulders drop even further, and, when the other settled on the edge of the tub by his side, he bent to rest his chin on his intertwined fingers with a clear pout on his lips.

“Maybe I'm a bad veterinarian,” he said, more to himself than to the man beside him, making Kuroo sigh in answer and pat him on a wide shoulder, a sincere _no, you're not_ coming out nearly automatically from his mouth; he was trying to remember what they had in stock in their kitchen that he could use to make something to pull Bokuto out of his bad mood, when the other's head fell to rest on his shoulder with another heavy, half-resigned sigh.

Kuroo tried really hard not to stiffen his back as his soulmate's scent and weight suddenly hit him, sharp and familiar and so, _so_ welcome, but Bokuto's next words made the task literally impossible, for him.

“She broke up with me,” he said, a mumble barely audible over the flapping of Kou's wings in the next room over, and Kuroo could have sworn his heart was suddenly stuck in his way-too-tight throat.

“I'm sorry,” he forced out, feeling like the worst human being in existence when he realized that he really _wasn't_ , not at all; he moved an arm to circle Bokuto's waist, offering as much silent comfort as he was able to, and the other sighed again and sank more into his side.

“People don't want me and cats get angry when I try to help,” he grumbled, waving a hand in a wide, close to distressed gesture, “do you think it's my fault? Maybe I'm a bad person.”

“No, man,” Kuroo said, tightening his hold on the other's wrist and letting his own head fall to rest on white and black hair, “there's nothing bad about you.”

 _If only you knew just how close to perfect you are_ , he mused to himself, letting a warm silence settle between them and then smiling at Bokuto's Anima when, a handful of minutes later, he jumped on his owner's legs and started purring loudly to get his attention.

“You see, cats _love_ you,” he grinned, laughing then out loud at the other's whined _that doesn't mean anything, Tetsu_ has _to like me!_

“Well I like you, too, and Akaashi doesn't mind you either, so, see? Two people, one cat, you can't be too bad,” Kuroo joked, getting up from his perch on the edge of the tub and moving towards the living room.

He could still feel Bokuto's scent surround him, and his heart and lungs still hadn't started properly working again; he was quite sure his skin was at least a couple of shades darker than usual, and his stomach still felt scrunched up and upside down – as his soulmate's long whine followed him in the kitchen, he idly wondered if it was ever going to come a time when he'd get used to what being in love did to him.

 _At least I can hold my breath for more than twenty-three seconds_ , he deprecatingly laughed at himself.

 

*

 

Kuroo had been just about to give up on trying to put Lev back to sleep – he swore, sometimes his workplace felt more like a nursery than a hospital – when he'd noticed his phone lighting up on the nightstand, the notification for fourteen incoming texts catching his eye and making him stop.

“Lev, for the last time, I can't explain you how an ECG works at three in the morning, you need to go back to sleep if you want to be able to undergo your surgery tomorrow morning,” he said, slight exasperated edge creeping on his voice, and then pushed the child back down on the bed with one hand, ignoring his complaints as he checked his phone with the other.

**> Less Important Owl; 03:32**

_\- i cant sleep what do i do_

_\- kuroo ??_

_\- r u ignoring me_

_\- im bored i cant sleep do smthhhhh_

_\- ugh_

_\- UGHHHHHH_

_\- HHHHHHH_

_\- HHH_

_\- h_

_\- im coming over_

_\- y r u still ignoring meeeee_

_\- im outside_

_\- what floor do u work on again_

_\- nvm ill find out myself_

“Fuck,” he breathed out, and then hurriedly got up from the child's bed and ignored the excited _bad word!_ he received from Lev in answer.

“Get back to sleep _right now_ or I'm making Yaku come here,” he threw over his shoulders as he run out of the room, and then made anyway a mental note to tell his colleague to check on the kid as soon as possible.

From the top of his head where he'd been sleeping till that moment, Kou suddenly perked up and hooted happily, widening his wings and launching himself through the corridor, and Kuroo stopped walking and took in a long breath, pushing his hands between his hair and smiling without really meaning to when he saw Tetsu appear from the same corner his Anima had just disappeared behind.

“You can't barge in here just because you can't sleep, you know,” he said, bending down to pick up the cat and rolling his eyes at his soulmate once he could see his pouting lips; Bokuto hadn't bothered spiking his hair up before going out, making it look like a tangled, fluff and soft mess on his forehead – Kuroo really wanted to thread his fingers between the locks, and took a second to be grateful for the Anima currently purring between his arms making impossible an involuntary gesture of the kind.

“But you were ignoring me,” Bokuto whined, Kou happily nesting on one of his shoulders and hooting at Kuroo as if agreeing with the complaint.

“I wasn't ignoring you, I was _working_ , which incredibly enough is what I do when I'm here,” he rolled his eyes, shaking his head and shifting all of his weight on one leg – his soulmate's answering grin was wide and somewhat satisfied, though, making him raise a brow in confused inquiry.

“What's the look for,” he asked, finding his lips reflecting a lazier version of the other's smile more out of habit than anything else, and Bokuto crossed his arms at his chest and tilted his head to the side with a long _hmmm_.

“No, you see, I know you're lying,” he said, and then pointed a finger at Kuroo when he opened his mouth and made to protest, “because! I can feel it when you cuddle with Kou, and when I sent you the first text you were _definitely_ cuddling with Kou,” he finished, sure and satisfied with his deduction, smile still wide on his lips and eyes nearly shining.

Kuroo had to think about it for nearly a whole minute to remember if the other was telling the truth, but just before he had noticed Lev and his Anima wandering the hospital's corridors he had been hugging his owl and wishing he were at home, hadn't he?

 _Impressive_ , he thought as his eyebrows rose on his forehead in surprise.

“You can actually always feel it?” he wondered, looking down at Tetsu in his arms and trying to remember if it had ever happened to him, to notice it when Bokuto was touching his Anima while they weren't next to each other.

Was that even something he could do?

Bokuto let out a low, drawn out _hmmmm_ , arms crossed and brows furrowed, and then shrugged and answered with a mostly unsure _kind of?_

“If you're touching him and I happen to think _I wonder if he's touching him_ and I concentrate _reeeally_ hard on it, I can feel a warm tingle right here,” he said, gesturing with a hand at his chest, “but in the last months I've started feeling it without concentrating too, sometimes.”

 _A warm tingle_ – did he mean the sudden feeling of his heart growing two sizes bigger? Kuroo had been randomly experiencing it since first meeting the other, but he'd always assumed it was a simple reaction his body had to the thought of his soulmate.

Maybe it wasn't thinking about Bokuto that caused the feeling, but the other way around...? He'd never thought about it that way, but it was possible, he guessed.

He opened his mouth, a question already forming on his tongue, when a small hand closing around the pants of his scrubs made him jump and suddenly look down.

“Who's that?” Lev asked, wide eyed and interested, and Kuroo let out a long and suffering groan in defeated answer.

“Didn't I tell you to go to sleep?” he questioned, moving his hands on the small shoulders to guide the kid back in his room – not even a second later Bokuto was already crouched down in front of him, though, hand pushed out as a request for a shake and big smile on his lips.

“Bokuto Koutarou, Kuroo over here is my soulmate! And who are you?” he asked, as enthusiastic and open as usual, and Lev grinned right back at him, taking a hold of his big hand with his definitely smaller one and shaking vigorously.

“Haiba Lev!” he announced, moving then his eyes from Bokuto to Kou and back again for a handful of times, “I guess you really are mr. Kuroo's soulmate,” he decided in the end, nodding to himself and crossing his arms.

Kuroo watched the exchange with a raised brow, unsure over whether to feel exasperated at the boy or amused at his soulmate, and then decided for a combination of both – he let the smile that he'd been repressing take over his lips, putting then a hand on Lev's head trying to guide him back to his room.

“Come on, back to sleep, you have surgery in–”

“Do you kiss him?” Lev interrupted, hands on his hips and serious stare pointed on Bokuto, whom in answer only blinked a couple of times and tilted his head in confusion – Kuroo would have found it incredibly amusing just how much like an owl his soulmate truly was, really, hadn't he been too preoccupied with feeling his heart stop and his stomach turn inside-out.

He took in a long breath, ready to steer the conversation away from that topic and back onto Lev's need to get back inside his bed, but Bokuto's smile suddenly turned a little dimmer, maybe more crooked even, and he shook his head at the kid.

“Kuroo's not into that,” he answered, shrugging his shoulders and prompting Kou to hoot at him in half-annoyance before better settling on him again.

Lev nodded and replied with a satisfied _that's okay, then_ , Bokuto asked why was that and the kid shrugged, probably, maybe, Kuroo wasn't really sure anymore, honestly, he wasn't paying attention in the least – his ears were ringing and his stare had gone unfocused, his back had tensed and his arms had tightened around Tetsu's sleeping shape and he had maybe stopped breathing and _what did he mean_ Kuroo _was the one not into that?_

“What,” he let out in a half-mumbled, shocked whisper, but Lev was introducing Bokuto to his Anima, a small, sand-colored puppy with the hyperactivity of over ten normal dogs, and neither of the two noticed his stiffened position or his dry voice.

 

*

 

They were on their way back home, Kou resting on Tetsu's back and cat elegantly opening the way, when Kuroo finally found the strength to ask Bokuto about that statement.

(If he concentrated hard enough, he could kind of feel Kenma's disappointment in him coming directly from the other side of the city – but at least in the end he'd asked, right? His best friend should be proud of him even just for that.)

He took in a long breath, feeling Bokuto's shoulder brush against his own with every step they took, and sunk his hands in his pockets to stop them from shaking.

It was early enough that the sun was still mostly hidden behind the tall buildings, and the road around them was silent and empty, the air chill and clear.

“What did you mean, back at the hospital?” Kuroo asked, eyes trained on the sidewalk in front of him, and then sighed and explained further when Bokuto's only answer was an inquisitive _hm?_ , “when you said, you know, that _I_ wasn't into that, what did you mean?”

He could imagine the way his soulmate tilted his head simply by the sound he made, slow and nearly-confused; he hit a small rock with the tip of one of his shoes, letting it roll a couple of feet in front of him and then hitting it again, and again, and _again_ , and Bokuto was still _hmmmm_ -ing and not answering.

“ _Bo_ ,” he prompted in the end, finally turning his eyes on his soulmate and seeing an openly confused stare directed at himself, “are you going to answer any time soon?”

“But I don't know what to answer!” he whined, throwing out his arms and stopping in the middle of the sidewalk with a frown on his face, “what do you mean what did I mean? I meant what I said!”

“Yes, but what does _that_ mean?” Kuroo groaned, waving a hand around in a distressed movement and then sinking his fingers between his black locks.

Why did that conversation have to be that complicated?

“I don't understand what you want me to say!” Bokuto cried out, shoulders slumping and frown turning into a slight pout, and by the time their Animae had made their way back to them Kuroo felt tired enough to push away his nerves and sigh in defeat.

“I don't– listen, I don't want you to say anything, I just... why did you say it was _me_?” he asked, letting his hands sink back in his pockets and hunching his shoulders a little, eyes on the ground and heart probably not beating in his chest.

Bokuto kept silent for a long handful of seconds after that, the quiet around them broken only by the sound of Kou ruffling his feathers from his perch on Tetsu's back, and then he crossed his arms back at his chest with a slow movement.

“Because it _is_ you,” he said, sounding at the same time confused at the other's question and sure in his answer, and Kuroo's back somehow stiffened even further, his head snapping up and around to bring his wide eyes on Bokuto's frowning ones.

“No, it's not,” he countered, and was it just his impression or were his lungs suddenly filled with water? Was that something that could spontaneously happen? He was pretty sure he hadn't studied anything about that back in university, but it was happening so it had to be possible, after all.

“Yes it is! I've been wanting to kiss you since the first time I saw you, how could it be me!” Bokuto cried out, throwing his arms at his sides in exasperation and pointing wide eyes on Kuroo's increasingly more confused face.

“What,” he choked out, feeling his stomach downsize and his throat close up, and, for a second, he seriously entertained the possibility of having fallen asleep at his desk at work and having dreamed up the whole night – but Bokuto was groaning and messing up his soft-looking hair with a distressed movement, and Kou's weight on his shoulder when he flew to rest there felt real and solid, his beak hitting him on his temple nearly even hurt.

He wasn't dreaming, was he?

“I saw you and you were _so pretty_ and you still are pretty but back then you were _so so so pretty_ and I'd never seen anyone as pretty as you and I thought _ahhhhh he's so pretty I want to kiss him!_ but then you said you didn't like men like that and you looked so stressed over it and I guess I thought it would be fine being platonic because I didn't want to force you into anything and _I love this_ okay don't get me wrong but _I've been wanting to kiss you for so long_ , man, because you're just so pretty!”

Kuroo could no longer feel his heart beating.

Were his lungs still working? His throat felt so tight, even if they were no air was reaching them for sure – his stomach felt wrong too, but that wasn't vital right then, was it? If he couldn't breathe, that was possibly the reason why his heart had stopped beating, which couldn't be good.

“I guess I can hold my breath for about sixty-seven seconds, if I need to,” he mused to himself, and before him Bokuto let out a confused _what?_ that he only distantly heard under the rushing of blood in his ears.

“Kuroo? Are you okay? Are you _angry_ at me, man, I thought you already knew please don't be angry,” he whined, closing the distance between them and taking a hold of Kuroo's biceps, shaking him slightly to bring him back to the present, but it was Kou's hooting and flapping of wings as he moved between black locks that had him finally snap out of his own mind.

“You thought... I knew?” he asked after a few still seconds, his frown deepening as the words properly sank into him, and Bokuto nodded with decision, hands still on his shoulders and face still too close.

“Yeah, I mean, you're great! And you're my _soulmate!_ And Tetsu loves you, but, well, of course he does, and I've been taking you out on dates, right, how could you not notice that?” he explained, and then nodded again and continued when Kuroo found himself uttering a small _dates?_

“The zoo! And the aquarium! And all the movies and the restaurants and that one time skating, you know, the _Dates_!” he exclaimed, letting go of one of the other's biceps only to wave a hand about in a wide, all-encompassing gesture, and he was still so close and the early-morning light brought out all of his stupid freckles and his eyes were shining and his lips pouting and he was talking about _kissing_ and _dating_ and calling him _pretty_ and Kuroo's groan left him like it had been punched right out of his chest.

When his lips finally met Bokuto's, the words the other had been still letting free-fall from his mouth suddenly stopped in an hitched _ah_ ; Kuroo pressed closer as soon as he shut up, raising his hands to hold onto his face and feeling the weight and heat of still-motionless lips like fresh water after an year spent in the desert – they were soft and dry and tasted like cheap hospital coffee, and Kuroo had never loved anything more than he loved the feeling of having them against his own.

Then Bokuto shook the shock off, back tensing further still for a split second and then relaxing all at once, his arms falling to circle Kuroo's waist and bringing him closer against his chest, lips pressing more into the kiss, taking in the other's lower one between his own and swiping his tongue along the seam to have his soulmate part them, and Kuroo suddenly felt so genuinely _good_ his knees threatened to give out from under him.

It was so right, he nearly didn't notice it when Tetsu climbed his way up to Bokuto's shoulders and started pressing the top of his head against both of their jaws in a plea for attention – after a few seconds of insistent mewls, Bokuto moved away just enough to cry out a whined _oh, come on!_ , and Kuroo's laughter came light and true at that, Kou soon after hooting and jumping down from his perch between black hair to try and get between the three of them as well.

“Can you two go play somewhere else for once!” Bokuto complained, already moving to put space between them to move the Animae away, but, before he could even just let go of the other's waist, Kuroo used the hands he still had on his face to make his soulmate look at him with a serious, long stare.

He leaned over to kiss him again, short and decisive, just because now that he could he saw no reason why not to, and then narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brows.

“Every time we've gone out you've mentioned doing the same with Akaashi,” he said, keeping his glare pointed and his hands unmovable, and Bokuto's confused _uhhh_ nearly made him roll his eyes in answer, “ _every single time_.”

“That's because Akaashi is my best friend...?” the other let out, unsure edge on all of his words, and that time Kuroo _did_ roll his eyes.

“And how was I supposed to know you meant it as dates when it was with me?” he pointed out, slightly shaking Bokuto's head back and forth – the next confused, even longer _uhhhhhh_ that left his soulmate's mouth made it close to impossible, for Kuroo, to hold in the smirk he'd been managing to avoid showing, his heart feeling too big for his rib cage and his stomach inside-out and upside-down, and he leaned in for another short, firm kiss just to try and hide how much he was actually _happy_ , right then.

Was a single person even allowed that much happiness, he wondered.

“Yeah, but with you it was different,” Bokuto said once they parted again, wriggling his nose as Tetsu nearly violently pressed his head against his temple and furrowing his brows in a determined expression, making Kuroo softly snort at him.

“How so?” he asked, a eyebrow high on his forehead and giving up on hiding the grin that insisted on bending his lips - he slightly raised an arm to have Kou more easily make his way to nest between them, shaking his head at both Animae and at his soulmate, and then nearly chocked on his own saliva when Bokuto's matter-of-fact answer was a simple:

“Because I'm in love with you, not Akaashi.”

His next kiss was so fierce and pressing that both Tetsu and Kou screeched at him and jumped back off of them because of it, but, when he was being completely honest, he couldn't find it in himself to care at all – everything his mind was able of, at the moment, was keeping on repeating the word _love_ over and over again, barely even registering the way Bokuto's body pressed solid against his own and just how soft his hair actually was once he slid his fingers between it.

 _If it's to kiss him_ , he let himself idly entertain in the back of his mind, smirk on his lips and Bokuto's taste on his tongue, _I may even be able to hold my breath for a whole day._

 

*

 

**> #2Owl #1Nerd; 01:52**

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i love u_

_\- i really really REALLY love u_

_\- I LOOOOOOVE YOU_

_\- i love u SO MUCH_

_\- i love uuuuu_

_\- i really really do_

_\- i_

_\- really_

_\- really_

_\- really_

_\- really_

_\- really_

_\- really_

**< Me; 01:56**

_\- I GET IT_

**> #2Owl #1Nerd; 01:56**

_\- really love u_

**< Me; 01:57**

_\- I love you too, you noisy overexcited owl_

**> #2Owl #1Nerd; 01:57**

_\- !!!!!!!!!!!!!_

**< Me; 01:58**

_\- Now let me work and go to sleep, you're up early tomorrow_

**> #2Owl #1Nerd; 01:58**

_- <3_

_- <3_

_- <3_

_- <3_

_- <3_

**< Me; 02:00**

_\- GO TO SLEEP BO_

**> #2Owl #1Nerd; 02:00**

_\- :(_

 

 

**< Me: 02:04**

_- <3_

**> #2Owl #1Nerd; 02:04**

_\- !!_

_\- i love you!!!_

 


End file.
